Dr. Gary Screaton Page, M.Ed., Ph.D.
Author – Professional Speaker – Entrepreneur – Pastor
The Laser Thinking Guy! TM
Online Media Kit
Focus = Power + Productivity + Profit
© Copyright 2008 by Gary Screaton Page. All rights reserved.
* * * * *
What’s Up Niagara magazine called Gary Screaton Page
“The Achiever!”
Contact
Bibliography: Books, Audio, Video
Pressing Your Own Buttons Quiz
Dr. Gary Screaton Page, Ph.D., M.Ed.
Looking for a different kind of interview? Gary Screaton Page will entertain, inform, and motivate your audience. His informative, practical, and up-beat messages will leave them wanting more.
Gary Screaton Page, Ph.D., knows people! His style and enthusiasm are infectious. A husband, father, grandfather, best-selling author, counselor, entrepreneur, award-winning educator, and Pastor, Dr. Gary Screaton Page has been helping people just like you for more than four decades.
He has been heard over more than 300 radio stations throughout the world, and has appeared on Take Thirty, Hour Long, and Canada A.M.
Dr. Page is co-author of Child Management: An Audiocassette Program for Parents, Teachers and Other Childcare Givers, and Funny Bones: Health and Humor Specialists.
He is the author of Being the Parent YOU Want to Be: 12 Communication Skills for Effective Parenting, Easy Ways for Getting "A's": A Success Guide for Students, Laser Thinking: How to Unleash Your Powers of Focused Concentration. Gary’s most recent book -- Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t™ -- is available on line at http://www.pressingyourownbuttons.com.
Dr. Gary Screaton Page, has written hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles, and was Contributing Editor of The Educational Courier. Gary has recently released his newest DVD, Dealing With Difficult People.
Gary is a Certified Pastoral Counselor, Marriage Counselor, Christian Social Worker.
Interview Topics
1. Child Management for Parents, Teachers, and Other Childcare Givers
a) Twelve Communications Skills for Effective Parenting/Teaching
b) Setting Rules Kids Want to Follow
c) Are Your Kids Parent Deaf? Overcome Your Children’s Resistance to Your Direction
d) What Did You Say? How to Know What Kids Really Mean By What They Say
e) What’s the Problem? How to Help Your Kids Solve Problems and Make Responsible Decisions
2. Interpersonal Skills
a) Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t™
b) Taming the Tiger: How to Get Control of Your Anger—Now!
c) The Greatest Obstacle to Success: Don’t Let Shyness Keep You from Getting What You Want Out of Life
d) How to Stop Singing The Blues – How to Deal with the Sadness and Pain in Your Life
3. Entrepreneurship
a) Laser Thinking: How to Unleash Your Powers of Focused Concentration
b) Minding the Business That’s You: Career Planning for the Free-Agent Nation
4. Humor
a) We Who Laugh Last!
b) How to Use Humor to Get What You Want
5. Writing and Publishing
a) So, You Want to Write a Book!
b) You Can be a Published e-Book Author by This Time Next Week – Guaranteed!
c) You Can be an Author without Writing a Word – Guaranteed!
d) How to Show the World You Are The Expert.
Suggested Interview Questions
Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t™
1. Why do certain people always manage to press our buttons?
2. What are the most controlling behaviors of other people?
3. What are the most common “hot buttons” to which we react?
4. How did I learn to react to difficult people the way I do?
5. How do I become less sensitive to what others say, do, or even how they look?
6. Is it really, that easy to change?
7. Doesn’t it take a long time to learn to overcome shyness, anger, being ignored, being told what to do?
8. What do you say to someone who says, “But that’s just the way I am”?
9. What is the most common myth about why we behave the way we do?
10. How can I permanently stop others from pressing my buttons?
11. What is a “social stimulus” and how is it different from any other kind of stimulus?
12. Won’t desensitization make me insensitive?
13. What is reappraisal and why is it so important?
14. Isn’t anger management a long and expensive process?
15. What if I can’t afford a therapist?
16. What are The Seven Steps To Personal Freedom?
Books
Being the Parent YOU Want to Be: 12 Communication Skills for Effective Parenting. Nevada City, CA: Performance Learning Systems, Inc. ISBN 1-892334-07-0 Paperback. Click Here.
Being the Parent YOU Want to Be: 12 Communication Skills for Effective Parenting Facilitator Guide. Nevada City, CA: Performance Learning Systems, Inc. ISBN 1-892334-08-9.
Paperback. Click Here.
Easy Ways for Getting A’s: A Success Guide for Students. Welland, ON: Canadian Institute of Human Development. Downloadable eBook. Click Here.
Funny Bones: Health and Humor Specialists. Glendora, CA: Royal Publishing, Inc. Hard Cover. Click Here.
Laser Thinking: Unleashing the Power of Focused Concentration. Welland, ON: Canadian Institute of Human Development. Downloadable eBook. Click Here.
Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t. Welland, ON: Canadian Institute of Human Development. Downloadable eBook. Click Here.
Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t Workbook Welland, ON: Canadian Institute of Human Development. Downloadable eBook. Click Here.
Audio
Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t. Welland, ON: Canadian Institute of Human Development. Downloadable eBook. Click Here.
Video
Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t. Welland, ON: Canadian Institute of Human Development. DVD. Click Here.
Pressing Your Own Buttons Quiz
1. In what three ways do people “press our buttons’?
2. The only source of social stimuli is _______________.
3. Anger is always an attempt to _________________.
4. Shouting, pouting, crying, and laughing are all ___________________.
5. What is desensitization?
6. Which of the following is not a social stimulus?
a. Swearing
b. Crying
c. Thunder
d. Sadness
2. True or false: reappraisal is the process of learning to become less sensitive to troublesome social stimuli.
3. True or False: A lion roaring to attract a mate is an example of a social stimulus.
4. This is a tough one! Which of the following does not belong?
a. Anger
b. Shouting
c. Sadness
d. Friendliness
e. Ignoring
f. Commanding
5. True or False: only social animals can be sources of social stimuli.
Answers: (1) By what they say, do, and how they look. (2) people (3) change what we don’t like (4) social stimuli (5) the process of making ourselves less sensitive to troublesome social stimuli (6) thunder (7) False: reappraisal is the process of re-evaluating, or reassessing the significance of a social stimulus. (8) False: only a person can be a source of social stimuli. (9) Shouting is not a troublesome social stimulus itself. It is part of a set of troublesome stimuli that we call anger, for example. (10) False: only people can be sources of social stimuli.
"Thank you for your support at the Division P training and for presenting such an excellent workshop.
"I have spoken to several people who attended your workshop. Their feedback was exceptionally positive. The participants were really impressed with your presentation skills and the level of information they were able to take away with them.
"Thanks again for making this year's Division P Training such an outstanding success." - Michael Johnson ATMS, CL - Division P Governor 2004-2005 - Toastmasters
"I so enjoyed your workshop at Toastmasters last night. Yours is the best workshop I have ever attended. It was fun, interactive, and full of practical advice I could have easily listened for another hour or two." - Alice Hunnersen, Participant, Port Credit Toastmasters
"Thank you for your support and presentation in spite of the challenges we faced today.
"You are a phenomenal presenter, and there were absolutely raving reviews about you. I will definitely promote you to the organization I work with . . . You are an inspiration to Division P and I thank you for your assistance in making this a memorable event." - Iona Rodricks, B.Com., MS, ATMS, CL, HPL - President, Meadowvale Toastmasters
"Thank you once again for delivering an inspirational keynote address at the May 31st 'Options' Conference, an initiative designed to connect unemployed individuals to employment supports and services within our community. The conferences are hosted by Job Skills and funded by the Government of Canada.
"You were able to successfully tap into the audience needs, presenting a sharply tailored session that left the participants feeling encouraged and inspired.
"The feedback we received from the conference participants was exceptional, many commenting that the day and your presentation in particular, instilled them with a renewed sense of confidence and optimism." - Holly Burch-Hie - Director of Employment Services & Programs - Job Skills
“We always attempt to bring in speakers who will help us in the resolution of disputes which are a very common occurrence in our offices. Your comments certainly did this and were very much appreciated.” - (Mrs.) Kathy Borisenko, Chair, P.D. Committee - Ontario
Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
"When is Gary Screaton Page going to have another workshop? It would be great to have it on tape, so we could just listen to it any other time in our homes." - Linda Free, Participant
"I found his workshop very helpful. I learned many useful ways to "Build Bridges."
Janet Taylor, Participant
Unleashing the Power of Focused Concentration
McMaster World Congress - McMaster University
The Power of Focused Concentration
National Technological Youth Leadership Conference Queen’s University
Keep On Connecting
H.I.E.C. Breakfast with the Mayors of Halton Hills and Milton
How to Deal with Difficult People
Getting Our Heads Together - Ontario School Counselors’ Association
Parenting and Child Management for Parents and Teachers
Niagara-Hamilton Baptist Association
Parenting and Child Management
Durham Bruce-Grey Interagency
Child Management
Ontario School Counselors’ Association
Attracting Perfect Customers
Port Colborne Chamber of Commerce
Pressing Your Own Buttons
Ontario School Counselors’ Association
Canada A. M.
Hour Long
Take Thirty
Parenting Today’s Teens
CHEX – TV “What Did You Do In School Today” (Writer & Host)
CHEX – TV “The Silver Basketball (Education Consultant)
Healthy, Wealthy ‘nWise
The Toronto Star
The Welland Tribune
The Peterborouogh Examiner
What’s Up Niagara Magazine
The St. Catharines Standard
The Voice of Pelham
The Business Link
What’s Up Niagara
By
Gary Screaton Page
1. Make Your Passion Your Business
3. Seven Steps to Personal Freedom
Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t TM provides powerful self-help in a variety of interpersonal coping skills. It is not just theory. Extensive research supports the principles that guided Gary Screaton Page in the development of not only the book but also the audio, video, and other print materials that form the complete system of training materials.
Here are just a few studies that give scientific credibility to the training provided in Pressing Your Own Buttons: How to Take Control of Your Life So Others Don’t TM
I. In Support of the Model
A. Clifford Christensen (1973) assumed that individuals possess a broad range of skills that they ought to use with greater frequency and flexibility. He encouraged an experimental approach towards interpersonal relations. Christensen disregarded the normative aspects of interpersonal communications in favor of less social conformity. He was primarily concerned with self-perceived, negatively affective, aspects of individuals' interactions with specific persons emitting specific types of reaction.
His problem-solving learning orientation assumed that all people emit "social stimuli" through what they say, do, or how they look. However, Christensen viewed such stimuli as being specific to the source. In this way, then, an angry husband will have a different effect than will an angry son.
B. Several other researchers have already undertaken to study the effects of the skills covered in Pressing Your Own Buttons. Potvin (1974), working with community college students and Usher (1974), working with graduate students in counseling, demonstrated that they could learn the ICSP through a didactic approach. Both researchers found ICSP training to be effective in improving participants' interpersonal relationships with significant others.
C. Usher, states that, “Available evidence (Arnold, 1960, 1969, 1970; Lazarus, 1966, 1968, 1970; Mischel, 1973) indicates that certain skills and cognitions could be specified as essential to initiating and maintaining satisfactory interpersonal relationships.”
These coping skills, so Usher demonstrates, are directly teachable (for example to groups of counselor trainees in a classroom setting). It is but a small leap to think one could teach them via a self-directed, programmed, multi-media training package. Indeed, clients often prefer interacting with the computer or a learning package, especially when revealing sensitive personal information in the initial stages of counseling.
D. Melodick (1984), compared human vs. microcomputer interviews for identifying an individual’s troublesome social stimuli, to assist counseling during intake when information is similar for both means. Melodick found significant agreement between the two methods. However, 73% of the participants in his study preferred, from an emotional perspective, the computer as interviewer.
E. From an intellectual perspective, there was little difference. This finding is supported by those of Lucas et al (1977); Canoune and Leyhe, 1985; and Waterton and Duffy, 1984. There was a willingness to disclose more information to the computer than through personal interviews, at least in the initial stages of counseling intake process. One must also be aware that a new generation of individuals exists that is more comfortable with computers than generations previous.
F. Weaver (1978) found that psychiatric nursing instructors, whose training in ICSP was limited, significantly improved the social competence of their students after only six weekly one-hour small-group training sessions. The students had significant reductions in evaluative anxiety, social avoidance, and distress when compared to Ss in a no-treatment control group.
G. Briedis (1976) compared ICSP with a high school guidance program designed to enhance Ss' personal and interpersonal development. After six weekly 47-minute training sessions in class groups, Briedis compared the ICSP pre- and post-treatment assessments. ICSP Ss were significantly more socially competent both in self-reported effectiveness in dealing with troublesome social stimuli and on a general measure of social competence derived from the California Psychological Inventory.
H. Usher (1974) determined that the principles taught in ICSP had positive effects on interpersonal relations.
I. Fryatt (1981) worked with neurotic female patients of a hospital outpatient clinic who suffered from either anxiety or depression. Fryatt used both a credible didactic interpersonal control group, to assess non-specific effects, and a waiting list control group as well. After having had his Ss meet for five weekly 2-hour sessions, Fryatt compared his pre- and post-treatment assessments. He found significant reduction in measures of trait anxiety, rated anxiety, Beck's depression inventory, rated depression, and Form R of the Katz Social Adjustment Scale.
J.Cole, et al, (1982) in a similar study (but working with individuals meeting once weekly for eight sessions) also found positive effects for ICSP. Specifically, significant improvements were noted in hypochondriasis (Hs), depression (D), hysteria (Hy), and schizophrenia (Sc) scale scores of the MMPI, self-reported levels of social discomfort with significant other, and Peculiar Behavior, Anxiety, Hostility, Confusion and Total Adjustment scales of the Community Adjustment Profile (CAP).
II. Self-directed and Programmed Learning
A. In this age of massive information and rapid obsolescence, suggests Cohen (1977), self-directed learning should be at the core of any model of education. She envisions a model tailoring individualized instruction to individual differences and exchanges, which take place as need dictates, among learners of all ages.
B. Whenever a learner must handle a present demand of living or working, the learner is more willing to invest time, effort, and money. Among adults, according to Knowles (1975), self-direction is characteristic. When they set out to learn something on their own volition, they learn it with greater efficacy than anything they learn from others either indirectly (usually through observation) or directly (through being told or because of punishment).
C. Lumsden (1975) did experiments using programmed materials to teach safety concepts to adults with eight or fewer years of formal education. He found such materials had a positive effect. However, Howe (1977) found there was no single form of programmed learning, which was equally appropriate for all learners at any given age. Therefore, a variety of strategies is appropriate.
D. According to Wieczorek (1983), if a self-directed learning experience is to be successful, the learner must be willing to make certain commitments. The one having the self-directed learning experience must be willing to invest time, effort, sometimes money, and certainly morale if they are to realize the anticipated benefits[1] from a self-directed learning experience. “For some learners,” writes Wieczorek, the motivation may be general self-improvement, pleasure, or curiosity. For most, however, it amounts to handling a present demand of living or working. This might entail personal or family relationships...”[2]
E. In any self-directed learning experience, however, learners must take the initiative. They must recognize their need, decide upon their learning objectives, and then identify the resources that will facilitate that learning. Programmed instructional materials are one form of resource a self-directed learner could use. Such materials have the advantage of leaving to the learner where and when the learning will take place, while providing a means of assessing progress toward the program's objectives. The learners supply their desire and interest, and the programmed materials provide the content and method to enable the learners to achieve their objectives.
F. Employing a meta-analytic technique to integrate findings from 48 independent evaluations of the effectiveness of programmed instruction in secondary schools, Kulik, Schwalb, and Kulik (1982) found that results from programmed instruction were similar to those from conventional teaching. However, their review of the literature indicated that the most favorable evaluations of programmed instruction came from the more recent studies. These, the writers suggest, reflect improvements in the science of programming.
G. Young (1967), studying the use of programmed materials in teaching high school biology, found a positive relationship between reading scores and achievement because of using the programmed materials. He also found that there was no significant difference in achievement between his experimental group, which used programmed material developed by him as their sole instructional device, and the control group, who had the same biology teacher received training in comparable material by conventional methods. However, the experimental group attained this level of achievement in one-half the time. There was no relationship between sex and final achievement.
H. Hunt and Lamkin (1975) randomly assigned high school biology students to one of two auto-tutorial sections. One section received immediate reinforcement and feedback; the other section did not. Using multiple linear regression, the research showed that the immediate feedback section scored significantly higher in cognitive learning. Their study indicates the importance—to users of self- instructional materials—of immediate feedback respecting user responses to programmed prompts.
I. Knowles (1980) described the characteristics of adult learners in his andragogical model of teaching. These characteristics include the need to be self-directing, the possession of a wealth of previous experience and an intrinsic motivation for learning, and the preference for a task-centered orientation to learning (Merriam and Caffarella, 1991).
J.Hwang (2000) looked at the user's end of the feedback loop, and determined why sometimes the loop fails. Hwang focused on feedback given on exams in particular since a broader goal of the research was to help refine the role of exams as a constructive learning tool rather than simply an auditing device.
She found that effectiveness of feedback depended on what students did with it. All feedback was useful to some degree and led to improvement but only if students paid attention to, and acted upon it. Their reasons for choosing to do so, or not, varied widely. Students who used feedback successfully were generally more attentive, less satisfied with lower marks, and more willing to take extra steps for example. They were also more interested in the subject.
A. Bibliotherapy is reading therapy. People experiencing interpersonal coping problem read self-help and other motivational books, either between counseling sessions—if they choose to seek counseling—or entirely on their own if they do not—to learn more effective interpersonal coping strategies. Several controlled clinical studies have shown that bibliotherapy can give results comparable to that of other therapies.
B. Specifically, they have shown that counselees in bibliotherapy recovered faster from depression than those on conventional therapies. What is more their improvement is constant over time. They do not appear to experience the remission observed with conventional therapy. More importantly perhaps, was the fact they had better outlooks on life.
C. Bibliotherapy, then, is a potentially useful complementary therapy to facilitate recovery when used with conventional therapy. One purpose of this study is to determine whether bibliotherapy—in this case reading self-help material such as the ICSP-CPC—can serve as a stand-alone therapy.
D. n 1994, researchers asked 500 American mental health professionals if they "prescribed" books for patients to read between sessions in order to speed recovery. Seventy percent of the therapists reported they used "bibliotherapy" with patients. 86% of the therapists reported that the books were helpful to their patients.
E. Forrest Scogin, of the University of Alabama, and his colleagues evaluated five published studies to determine the effectiveness of stand-alone bibliotherapy. These researchers also evaluated the effectiveness of Dr. David Burns' Feeling Good[3] and Dr. Peter Lewinsohn's Control Your Depression[4] as self-administered treatments for depression. The investigators concluded that Feeling Good was as effective as a full course of individual psychotherapy or in conjunction with antidepressants.
F. Target readability levels of consent forms should be between 6th and 8th grade. Examples of this level appear in the popular press, e.g. Newsweek and USA Today. Computer programs that analyze grade level, like the Flesh Kincaid method, are useful tools but cannot be relied upon in whole because informed consent documents often use words of a higher level (like the name of a procedure) that you will also explain in lay terms.”
G. Cash (2005) and Wilson & Cash (2000) discuss at length the factors that characterize those who voluntarily seek to read self-help resources, books in particular. Wilson & Cash developed and validated the Self-Help Reading Attitudes Survey with a sample of 264 male and female college students. The resultant 40-item measure proved psychometrically sound, with acceptable reliability and both discriminant and convergent validity. Cash found that people with more favorable attitudes toward reading self-help books held better attitudes about reading in general. They proved more psychologically minded, had stronger self-control orientation, and reported greater life satisfaction than people with less favorable attitudes.